Key meeting on air pollution and health, 21-22 January 2020, Brussels

The ISEE Europe Chapter, the Health Effect Institute, World Health Organization and the European Respiratory Society held a joint meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on January 21-22, 2020. The event was also supported by the European Commission.

The joint meeting, "Air pollution and health: Recent advances to inform the European Green Deal", reviewed the latest science on major pollutants, such as PM2.5 and NO2, as a key step in evaluating whether to update Europe’s air quality policies. The workshop was followed on the second day by a separate briefing to the European Parliament summarizing these issues. The programme and slides of the presentations can be found  here.

For more information contact Hanna Boogaard.

The ISEE Europe Chapter, the European Respiratory Society, the Polish Respiratory Society and the National Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases are pleased to announce a November 25-26, 2019 meeting to be held in Warsaw, Poland. The event is also supported by the European Commission in Poland. To register contact Roberta Sadauskaitė.

The objective is to increase awareness, knowledge and capacity on current air pollution and health issues. Participating stakeholders include the WHO office in Poland, citizens, environmental epidemiologists, health professionals and (local) politicians.

Day one will be a masterclass with the latest science on the adverse health effects of air pollution. Day two will be an advocacy best strategies workshop.

Programmes:
Masterclass in air pollution and health, November 25 2019
Workshop on air pollution advocacy, November 26 2019

In Germany, politicians have called for a re-evaluation of air quality standards. Our scientists weighed in to summarise the evidence. Click here to read the joint Air Pollution & Health Statement by the ISEE and ERS (the linked PDF is in German).

In recent years, strong evidence has emerged that noise is one of the top environmental hazards to both physical and mental health and well-being in the European Region. Important sources of harmful noise exposure are: road traffic, railways, aircrafts, wind turbines and leisure noise (such as noise emitted from personal listening devices). The World Health Orgenazation released today new recommendations regarding noise exposure in Europe from these sources. The guidelines are available in this link.

Dear ISEE member,
 
The ISEE Council, incorporating feedback from about 40 ISEE members, developed a first draft Strategic Plan for the society effective 2017-2020.
 
We need your feedback, it is important to get our priorities right!
 
We are in the process of finalizing the Strategic Plan including priority areas and priority actions for these areas; for example actions regarding more efficient communication, or actions to promote educational activities or to increase our membership in Asia. 

We created a blog on the ISEE Europe website to give you the opportunity to comment on the Strategic Plan document. Please click here to access the document:

We thank you for your help.
 
Manolis Kogevinas, President ISEE
Ulrike Gehring, Councilor ISEE- coordinator of the ISEE Strategic Plan

 
Disclaimer: Unless clearly stated, the views published in this blog do not represent ISEE’s views.

ISEE is currently developing a Strategic Plan for the period of 2016-2020. The development of the Strategic Plan involves three phases of strategic planning: 1) an evaluation of the current situation, 2) the definition of goals and/or objectives, and 3) the development of a road map to the goals/objectives.
 
A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis has been performed to evaluate the current situation. The SWOT will be presented during the General Membership Assembly. A link to the description and summary of the SWOT results can be found below.
 
With this blog, we would like to give you the opportunity comment on the SWOT results.
 
We thank ISEE Europe for hosting the blog.
 
Manolis Kogevinas, President ISEE
Ulrike Gehring, Councilor ISEE
 
Disclaimer: Unless clearly stated, the views published in this blog do not represent ISEE’s views.

ISEE SWOT Survey Results
​

Air pollution, especially particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), significantly increases mortality, and has adverse effects on respiratory, cardiovascular, reproductive and child health. Currently, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to air pollution in the EU. In the 2005 global update of the Air Quality Guidelines, the World Health Organization (WHO) set a guideline for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in air of 10 μg/m3 as an annual average. More than 80% of the urban population in the WHO European Region (including the European Union, EU) still lives in cities with levels of PM exceeding these WHO Air Quality Guidelines. Pollution from PM creates a substantial burden of disease, reducing life expectancy by almost 9 months on average in Europe (REVIHAAP, WHO 2013). Reduction of air pollution levels has been shown to increase life expectancy in North America, where
levels are generally much lower than in the EU (Pope et al. NEJM 2009).

Harmful air pollutants are not only caused by direct emissions, but also by emissions of gaseous precursors that will then react with each other and form secondary particles and ozone. The EU Directive of 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe explicitly states that the “emissions of harmful air pollutants should be avoided, prevented or reduced and appropriate objectives set for ambient air quality taking into account relevant World Health Organization standards, guidelines and programmes”. To effectively reduce harmful air pollutants, all sources of emissions have to be taken into account, including those that produce precursors of particles, such as ammonia, or that increase ground-level ozone such as methane.

In the light of the upcoming legislation on National Emission Ceilings for the European Union, ISEE and the ISEE Europe Chapter, the scientific organization of environmental epidemiologists, urges the European Parliament and the European Commission and Council of Ministers to adopt strict regulations for a reduction of National Emission Ceilings including all sources of primary and secondary particles and ozone, and for a tighter control of air pollution concentrations with the goal to achieve better air quality and improved health across Europe, taking into account WHO recommendations.

Specifically, we

• support the more ambitious Parliament/Commission emission reduction figures especially for PM and ammonia;
• support the inclusion of methane in the directive as proposed by the Parliament and Commission;
  
• support binding 2025 limits as proposed by the Parliament – early action is key given the immediate impacts of air pollution on people’s health;
  
• reject flexibilities such as the adjustment of emission factors, 3-year averaging mechanisms which make the Directive more complex and less effective.
  

Prof. Dr. Manolis Kogevinas
President of ISEE
Professor and co-Director
Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL)
IMIM (Hospital del Mar Research Institute)
Barcelona, Spain

Prof. Dr. Barbara Hoffmann
Chair of ISEE Europe
Professor of Environmental Epidemiology
University of Düsseldorf, Germany

Dr. Mireille Toledano
Vice-Chair of ISEE Europe
Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology
School of Public Health
Imperial College London, UK

​The paper by Tsuda et al. 2015 published in Epidemiology reporting an increase in thyroid cancer in Fukushima has been responded by several critical letters (see the end of this post). 
Tsuda et al. 2015. Thyroid Cancer Detection by Ultrasound Among Residents Ages 18 Years and Younger in Fukushima, Japan: 2011 to 2014. Epidemiology, 2015 Oct 5.

Following the paper by Tsuda et al, the President of ISEE sent in January 2016 an official letter to the authorities in Japan requesting more research on this topic. The letter also created reactions.
Laden et al. 2016. Correspondence.

We are therefore opening an open space here where these comments can be published and responded, if necessary, by the ISEE. We thank ISEE-Europe for hosting the blog.

Manolis Kogevinas
President ISEE

Disclaimer: Unless clearly stated, the views published in this blog do not represent ISEE’s views. 

Letters in Epidemiology, 2016 Feb 3, 
Shibata 2016. Re: Thyroid Cancer Among Young People in Fukushima.
Jorgensen 2016. Re: Thyroid Cancer Among Young People in Fukushima.
Wakeford et al. 2016. Re: Thyroid Cancer Among Young People in Fukushima.
Körblein 2016. Re: Thyroid Cancer Among Young People in Fukushima.
Takahashi 2016. Re: Thyroid Cancer Among Young People in Fukushima.
Takamura 2016. Re: Thyroid Cancer Among Young People in Fukushima.
Tsuda et al. 2016. Response to the Commentary by Professor Davis and the Seven Letters. -A well-known fact should be disseminated to remedy the problems.
Suzuki 2016. Re: Thyroid Cancer Among Young People in Fukushima.

This post was moved from the old ISEE Europe blog. Unfortunately, the old comments could not be transferred to the new format. However, they are available for viewing via this link.